


All I want for Christmas...

by Sys



Category: The Mentalist
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-12 07:48:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17463485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sys/pseuds/Sys
Summary: This is a ridiculous second attempt at writing cute kidfic for this fandom... the first attempt ended up with Patrick contemplating his daughter's death, so uh... this is a bit sweeter than that, at least. But I'm still very sorry I couldn't just write a really nice story.





	All I want for Christmas...

**Author's Note:**

  * For [emeraldarrows](https://archiveofourown.org/users/emeraldarrows/gifts).



> Hi! If you received this story and don't like it, please just let me know. (Something along the lines of "No thanks" will do nicely. I'll be happy to remove it, so it's not associated with you any longer.) I hope you're having a fantastic New Year and that you and yours are safe, happy and healthy and remain thus.

“Maddie!”

“Sammy!”

He watches the delight on the girls’ faces as they hug. Enjoys Lisbon’s content expression as she hugs first Grace and then Rigsby. It was a good idea, putting deliberate effort into fostering, well rekindling this friendship. Christmas cards, birthday cards, facetime, calls, and the occasional visits, small presents, pictures not only group selfies, but also actual pictures to be hung to remind his daughter of her earliest childhood friend.... all of it goes into one of his most essential goals in life... seeing Lisbon and Sammy happy. 

They’re still packed with stuff. It’s the first time since he’s had to give up on the house by the lake as a main domicile. As anything but a place for the occasional long weekend all of them need to recover from the stress of juggling raising a child with a fulltime job that, quite often, requires at least one of them to work nights, too. But every new chapter in life holds opportunities, too. And having a proper house means that your friends can stay in the guest room and don’t need to find a hotel when you invite them to stay.

“Boots!” Grace reminds Maddie when the girls are about to run off to Sammy’s room. 

He’ll forever be grateful that Grace and Rigsby aren’t the sort of guests who’ll let their kids wreck havoc. Not that Hightower would, obviously. But there’s no telling if she can make it. Nobody seems particularly keen on spending Christmas with them. Cho’s working deliberately, but he’ll sell that as volunteering so families can spend their time together, ignoring that some of his best mates are in town about twice sometimes thrice per year. It probably isn’t that appealing, hanging out with two couples who’re married with children...

“So Ben’s at Sarah’s?” He asks Rigsby while Grace is helping Maddie out of her boots and Lisbon’s reminding Sam that she wants to see them at the table the _first_ time they’re called for dinner. 

“She wants him to get to know Stephen’s daughter Lauren a little better. Now that they think about getting married, should give him a chance to meet his future stepsister... skiing trip to Europe... Austria, I think.”

“Ah.” So neither Christmas nor New Year’s this year, after both last year. Not that there’s much of a point of remembering that sort of information. Just requires a little more listening this time so they don’t end up with an unsuitable present some time. Not when he still prides himself on being _good_ at that sort of thing.”Shall I help you with the bags?”

 

Once everything’s settled it’s time for dinner and (for the girls, that is) bed. There’s no hope that they’ll sleep anytime soon. But it’s impossible to tell them off when they’re giggling over God knows what, clearly having the time of their lives. So for about an hour they just talk about life and kids and the oddest cases, but eventually it’s time to at least get the girls into bed and start reading. 

He takes one look at Grace, and makes his decision. “We can take care of those two. You two must be knackered from the trip.”

The grateful little smile he receives tells him that it was a good idea. And there’s little point having four adults crowd into Sammy’s room. A short glance at Lisbon and he knows he’s the one who’ll start reading to the girls while she shows their guests where to find everything they might need. 

At Sammy’s door he knocks. Waits to be asked inside. And raises a brow at the bunch of dolls and soft toys tied together with a skipping rope, while the girls are clearly busy analyzing the self-created mess around the crime scene.

“Have you considered freeing the victims?”

“Victims?!” Sammy raises _her_ brow. “Those are the culprits, dad. Mr. Fox here is the leader of the gang, they’re responsible for a series of aggravated burglaries. Took three years to track them down.”

He’s torn between pride and the nagging worry that a five year old shouldn’t be aware of the word culprit. Let alone aggravated burglary. It’s quite enough that they’ve had to talk to the kindergarten teacher about the crime scene picture she drew. Primary school’s supposed to be a new start. 

“Sweetie, have you considered playing house?”

They _both_ give him looks that tell him that no, they haven’t, though he notes that Maddie actually has brought along one of the dolls in a carrying bag. Modern parenting... take along your kids to crime scenes...

“Mom will join us once Grace and Wayne have settled in. You better clean this up and make it to bed before that. You _know_ post dinner’s not playtime.”

“But none of the other kids ever play with me like Maddie does.” 

Strange, really. He offers Sammy his _I mean it_ look, because it’s pointless to raise his voice, and it gets the point across. Fortunately it seems that Lisbon’s been caught up talking to their old friends for a while, because they manage to return every toy to its original box, bed or shelf, and both girls manage to crawl into bed. He’s already two pages into _Rapunzel_ when Lisbon does join them. But while he can feel the suspicious look, he just holds out one arm to invite her to join them. 

It’s always nice when things are relaxed enough for them to take turns, reading. Lisbon’s witch voices particularly are pretty fantastic, reminding him that of course she’s had plenty practice trying to keep a band of brothers in check. Now two readers means that Sammy’s going to insist on more than her fair share of reading. But they’ll probably be up half the night pondering presents (or sneaking out to see if they can find them), so what’s the use of trying to get them to sleep?

Lisbon takes over _Rumpelstiltskin_ , and he’s about to move to _Ugly Duckling_ to end on a happier note, but Maddie’s clearly preoccupied.

“Why doesn’t the Princess have to give up her baby? She promised.”

“Uh...” He glances at Lisbon. “You shouldn’t have to give up your...”

“But Rapunzel...”

He considers pointing out that at least Gothel tried to take good care of Rapunzel and was just overly protective, but Lisbon beats him to an explanation.

“Gothel adopted Rapunzel. She had all the papers drawn up and had a really good lawyer.”

Fluent lying without any giveaways. Pretty impressive.

“Ben’s mom is a lawyer.” Maddie says, seemingly pleased that she knows someone who could draw up contracts that take away kids from their parents. “Ben wants to be one too. I’d rather be a cop.”

Sammy nods enthusiastically. “Catch bad guys and put them away for life.”

There are times when he wonders how Sam will feel about his past when she hears about it. But there’s still a lot of time before they need to talk about that. For now he leaves the cautioning about why being a cop isn’t such a stellar career choice to the professionals. And then fluently battles any protests that it so is by finally starting on Andersen’s _Ugly Duckling_.


End file.
